


Overbearing

by sneebs



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 13:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15195695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneebs/pseuds/sneebs
Summary: Reyna had been fine with Rachel showing her around for a while. And then she couldn’t get rid of her. Was that… a bad thing, necessarily?





	Overbearing

Reyna was fine for the first few days. She hadn’t really known Rachel. She’d even thought… She’d even thought it was… sweet. Sweet of Rachel to show Reyna around, even though the praetor had already been given the tour the one time she was there before.

She remembered the time they’d first met. It was during desperate circumstances and a desperate war, and these feelings had thrown a negative veil over the unusual aurar. An uneasy, intimidating, strange power had radiated from the strange girl holding a blue hairbrush. Her hair had flamed in the sun, almost too bright to look at.

And of course, after the final battle, Reyna had seen Rachel rushing around and recognized her. She once even caught her eye and saw a flash of a smile. They never stopped to talk. 

It wasn’t until their second meeting that Reyna had realized… just exactly who and what Rachel was.

“Boo,” a voice had sprung next to her ear. Every Roman and even most Greeks had learned by then never, ever to do that. Before Reyna could even blink, her dagger was in hand, the intruder was on the ground, and her fingers were ready to cut a pale, sunlight-speckled throat.

“ _Shit_ ,” Rachel had gasped, and her chest started convulsing. It took a moment for Reyna to piece together the situation, and a flash of anger overcame her before being swallowed by fear. Did Rachel have panic attacks? Anxiety?

Immediately having scooped up Rachel in her arms and ready to drag her back to the Big House, Reyna finally realized the diagnosis of Rachel’s heaving chest- laughter.

Reyna, in a note of exhausted fury, dropped the stupid girl, and Rachel yelled, “ _Shit_!” again before rolling around laughing in the jade, dew-speckled grass that matched her eyes. 

“You-” Reyna managed, confused and furious emotions wrestling each other within that word. Whatever sentence that was supposed to come after had died on Reyna’s tongue as she curiously watched the red-headed fairy child struggling to her feet.

Rachel winced just barely as her fingers grazed lightly against her throat. She stared at Reyna and Reyna stared back, and a grin as wide as the sun spread itself across Rachel’s features. 

“I’d advise not doing that again,” Reyna had said, finally, a little uneasy. She watched Rachel’s grin grow even wider.

“You’re kidding, right? That was  _awesome_. I nearly crapped my pants.”

Reyna let herself stare for another minute, and then blinked slowly, taking this situation in with stride. Her features slid back under a cool mask of musing observation. She tested out a “Still. Don’t do that again,” and nearly got her arm yanked out of her socket.

“Rock climbing lava wall,” Rachel had immediately announced, hand still in Reyna’s, still dragging the girl behind her with a tiny, dainty arm. “I’m going to test how long it takes you.”

Reyna had had things to do, and began to protest, but stopped when Rachel stopped and turned around, face serious and stubborn.

“Rock wall,” she repeated. And Reyna, suddenly extremely close to absurdly emerald eyes, found herself nodding.

She’d scaled it in 10 seconds- the eleventh fastest time in camp, although that had only been her first try- but that’s not the point.

The point was that Rachel, since then, had taken it upon herself to go hand in hand with Reyna wherever she went. And Reyna- astoundingly, stupidly, mindblowingly- couldn’t find herself the strength to break away.

Reyna. Without strength.

It was a paradox.

“I believe I have to meet with Frank and Chiron to discuss-” Reyna attempted, and Rachel would yank her even harder and march her down to the beach, ending the discussion.

Maybe Reyna couldn’t get a word in because Rachel would talk. Nearly every second.

About everything. About nothing. Always with a grin- sometimes beaming, at others bored and lazy, at others sarcastic and grimacing. She was incredibly blunt and incredibly honest, Reyna found, as she listened to the gruesome details of Rachel’s fiasco puberty adventures.

There were details of that she wouldn’t like to ever repeat or think about.  
And again, at first, despite the slightly rocky start, it was sweet. In a way. Reyna was making a new friend. A demanding, overpowering, odd, new friend.

After a few days, Reyna was starting to get weary. She didn’t deal with annoying. Nobody was stupid enough to continue on with their annoying after she told them to stop. Rachel simply wasn’t getting the message.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, please. Or, I should leave. No, I was not inviting you to come with-”

“Rachel. Please. Some time alone, would be nice…”

“Rachel!”

“You… You… Rachel, you’re just…  _incredibly_  overbearing-”

“ _Thank_  you!” Rachel announced dramatically to that last attempt, stretching and falling onto Reyna’s open lap. Reyna had immediately stiffened, and Rachel turned to bury her face into the bend of her knee. Warmth diffused through Reyna’s body, and she shuddered. 

“I would advise against-”

Rachel waved her hand and gave a muffled sound.

“I would  _advise against_ _doing_ -”

But Rachel had already snuggled up, bending her legs into her body by hugging them, and breathed out slowly, more warmth clouding itself into Reyna’s knee. 

Reyna officially forgot what she was saying.

They stayed like that for a while before hearing a laughing screech and running not far behind them, and Reyna jolted up and began to walk back.

Rachel, of course, had followed.

*****

“Rachel,” she had finally snapped, the day before she left, turning around and giving her best killer eyes, chin pointing like a dagger, a blazing fire to her features. “You are going to leave me alone today. I will walk to the Big House alone today. And you’re going to obey, because you’re going to be polite enough not to go against what a human wants. And even if you are impolite, you’re going to obey me because I’m praetor and I pull rank. Is that understood?”

Rachel remained speechless and suspended for only a second. And then she smiled, blew Reyna a kiss, and walked off, hands in baggy paint-splattered jeans, a navy shirt dragging along her shoulders and showing off her glittering red freckles. Rachel’s hair was fire, rubies, burning into Reyna’s eyes, ticking something off in her soul. For whatever reason, her mind came to remember vaguely the city of Charleston, and before her train of thought could proceed any further, Reyna cut it off, breathing out in a long-winded sigh. She ran her fingers through her hair and forced herself to stop thinking, to focus on the issues of intercamp transport, acceptance levels of Greeks and Romans (should  the Greeks go through wolf initiation like Romans had? Should Romans be required to prove themselves if they join Camp Half Blood as well, then?), futures and cities, blending of cultures…

Real issues. That’s what Reyna  _s_ _hould_  have been thinking about.

 _Was Rachel hurt?_  is what she thought of instead, and hated herself for feeling a bloom of guilt rise and pop.  _It’d been the only time she left without saying goodbye._

_Should Reyna apologi_ _ze?_

_Should she have pulled the who_ _le praetor rank thing? Renya tended to dislike pulling that out. Had that sounded too snobby?_

_What did Rachel think of her now? Had that been too mean?  
Who is she going to now? Is she _ _upset enough to tell anyone?_

_Is Rachel going to worry about w_ _hat will happen to the Oracle of Delphi now? Will she have to worry alone? She’d been talking about that more recently…_

Reyna tried to force the thoughts out of her head.

But that meant that they kept coming back.

*****

Dakota had slurringly asked if she finally managed to tear herself away from little red riding hood to talk some other people for once this week. Reyna calmly whacked the back of his head.

*****

“Gods, I didn’t know you and Rachel were that close-”

“We’re really not, Percy.”

“When’d you guys even meet?”

“I… The second time I’d ever talked to her was this trip.”

“You warmed up to Rachel about a thousand times faster than you warmed up to me. I find that a little offensive.”

“I thought the problem was I warmed up to you too much. And you had a girlfriend.”

“…”

“Goodbye, Percy.”

“Are you… warming up to Rachel… the same way?”

“Good _bye_ , Percy!”

*****

About thirty minutes before she left for Camp Jupiter, Rachel had still not come by. Lunch had passed yesterday, and then dinner, and then breakfast today. And still. Rachel had not come by.

 _Ready_? Reyna asked herself, silently, staring at her meticulous duffel bag. She had packed and repacked over and over, wasting minute after minute of free time. She knew the answer. She’d been ready for an hour now. She always was. But something was itching at her skin, pulling at her from her chest, sinking into her brain slowly and heavily-

Reyna sighed a deep, slow sigh and straightened up. Apologies were hard but necessary, and she tended to look down upon those who couldn’t commit to them. You can give up smidgens of pride. You can afford it. It’s not that hard.

Except for whatever reason, thinking of apologizing to Rachel made her chest a little bit tighter than usual.

She and Rachel had been by Rachel’s cave multiple times that week, and Reyna found that her feet already knew where to go. When Reyna had first walked inside… It  was considerably not what Reyna would have expected.

Disorganized. Reyna felt a desperate urge to pick up the mountains of clothing along the floor and fold them. Paintings, paintings, everywhere- on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, sometimes painted on the rocks of the caves themselves… and color. Everywhere, there were splashes of rubies, sapphires, royal magentas, fuschias, the deepest of indigos and violets, gold, silver, rose pinks, lavenders, some soft, some outstandingly bright, all different, all mashed together in a chaotic unorganized lump, all making Reyna feel uncomfortably anxious and in awe at the same time. 

And it was this that Reyna had been thinking of before she managed to look up and see the soft cloudy-blue rocks that made up Rachel’s front door…

And she hesitated. For a couple of long seconds. Reyna didn’t quite know why she was hesitating, she didn’t quite know what was such a big deal, she didn’t know why it was so hard for her to let her apology slip from her mouth-

“ _I would advise against that._  The girl that lives there is  _such_  a bitch,” some bright, sarcastic voice rang out behind her, and Reyna couldn’t stop herself from drawing out her dagger.

“I thought we were over this?” Rachel laughed, heartily, and her laugh was made of snorts and sunlight and something real and substantial. A smile unwittingly tugged at Reyna’s lips, and she forced it down into a frown. Rachel’s hands gently went to Reyna’s to bring down the dagger. Reyna, surprising herself, didn’t yank her hands away.

“I thought I told you to stop doing that.”

“And when do I ever listen?”

“Oh,” Reyna raised her eyebrows, her jaw lining back in place. “You noticed that, too? I thought I was the only one.”

Rachel laughed again, and something inside Reyna jolted sharply, momentarily- and frighteningly- taking her breath away.

A beat passed. It was full of things that frightened Reyna more than most monsters could.

“I was actually just going over to say goodbye,” Rachel mentioned, a bit quietly, the brightness in her smile becoming softer. “And then I reached the Big House, and realized that you weren’t there, and I asked around, and people said you were looking for me, and sure enough, here I am, and here you are, and what a coincidence, really, that we both crossed paths and didn’t realize it, searching only for each other when the other has left and all that. It must be a metaphor. It’s official, Reyna- we were meant to be together.”

Reyna didn’t blush, but it was very hard not to at this moment, and instead she smiled vaguely, and knew she should tease back, knew she should say something witty. But instead, after a heated, pressurized silence, there came an “Oh.” Which was a brilliant answer. Very interesting. Fascinating, really. Reyna hated herself and inability to hold a conversation and her tendency to panic over simply talking to a fellow friend…

Friends. She hadn’t realized Rachel classified one of those so quickly. Maybe she  _had_  warmed up to her absurdly fast. 

Rachel wasn’t one to ignore the hanging words left in the air. “Oh? That’s all you have to say? Are you nervous, or something?”

Reyna felt something in her nerves get shot, and Rachel, as usual, went on. “You were hanging around my door for a while, too, I noticed. Were you afraid of somebody? Me, for instance? Anything you have to say?”

Reyna soured considerably, putting her chin up as regally and elegantly as she could. “Possibly.”

“And…?” Rachel leaned just the slightest inch closer, freckles dancing across her porcelain cheeks, arms folded across her chest, shoulders relaxed and carefree. Why Reyna was thinking about shoulders at this time, she really had no idea, but she suddenly felt a surge of unnecessary, raging, crazy jealousy for those shoulders. Her own were stiff and tight and-

“I am considering right now if you deserve what I have to say at the moment.”

Rachel rolled her eyes playfully and leaned back. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Reyna repeated, stupidly, as usual.

“What determines if I deserve what you have to say?”

“How much you annoy me.”

“Mm.”

“Maybe if you listen to anything I ask of you once in a while, I’ll talk to you more.”

“All you do is ask me to leave. And how can I bear to stay away from you, Reyna?”

“Flattery is worthless and won’t get you anywhere.”

“Don’t you have to leave in a few minutes?”

“I- Yes.”

“Shoulddn’t you just tell me what you need to say, then?”

Reyna’s throat went fairly dry before she cleared it. Her eyes flickered down before raising upwards, and she tried to stiffen up, straighten up. This was stupid. If she dragged the apology out, she made a bigger deal out of it.  _Rip it off, quickly and efficiently. Like a band-aid. The apology is what you’re here for. Not… this stupid banter._

“I’m sorry about yelling at you yesterday. If it hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to sound harsh. I did mean to sound harsh, actually, but I didn’t mean to sound mean. I wish I hadn’t snapped.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and brought Reyna in for a warm, hearty, rib-squeezing hug. For fairly skinny arms, Rachel was much firmer and stronger than expected. “Oh, I don’t care. Just as long as I get to visit you in Camp Jupiter. Were you worried about that? Aw, that’s sweet. I was kind of waiting for you to snap. I was wondering when you’d finally have enough. And you almost made it to the end of the week! Gods! Good for you. Maybe I’ll fly over to visit you sometime. Would that be fine? Like, how much fun would that be?”

Reyna remained still in Rachel’s arms, ignoring the fact that Rachel’s fingers were rubbing circles into her back and that it felt really, really good.

“You  _knew_  how much you were annoying me?”

“Wasn’t it obvious? I thought it was obvious. Anyways. You better Iris Message me. Or, if you can’t figure it out, get someone else to do it for you. I have stories to tell. And you have even more stories to tell. Shit, we spent a week together and you didn’t even tell me about your favorite food or anything. Maybe I’ll Iris Message you. But I kind of don’t want to catch you in the middle of praetor work or anything. But whatever. If you don’t message me, be sure as hell that I will be hurt and message you a hundred times over and harass you until you’re afraid of my face. You won’t be able to sleep at night.”

Reyna began to stir, an unwilling smile smacking itself onto her face, and she struggled to keep it down. “You’re threatening me? Do you know who I am?”

“Yes. You’re Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. Aha, I know how much you hate that. I’ll tell you my full name, I guess- Rachel Elizabeth Dare. It isn’t too bad.” And then Rachel leaned in for a quick kiss on the cheek. Maybe that’s what the Greeks did, Reyna should have reasoned with herself. Maybe that’s New York culture. It shouldn’t have burned its way into her skin like it did, leaving a faint imprint of a warm lips memory behind, continuing to tickle her throughout the day. 

“Bye, Reyna. Don’t forget to message.”

And then she was gone, disappearing into her chaos of a cave. 

And as Reyna turned around, finally, against the door of rocks, she started to feel a small, sad ache erupt inside of her. Finally, finally, she was too powerless to stop her brain of thought, and she remembered Charleston, and Aphrodite, and her words- 

_You will n_ _ot find love where you wish or where you hope. No demigod shall heal your heart._

Reyna had a feeling she knew where this was heading.

And despite being terrified for the road ahead, she couldn’t help but finally smile, openly, beamingly, just like Rachel’s, as she walked on to get her bags. 

For once in her life, she was sad to go home.


End file.
